The Role of Religion in the Globalized Society. With Dr. Heinrich Bedford-Strohm

According to a study from 2017, Germans are becoming “religious illiterates”: in many places they lack the basic knowledge of Christian traditions and only a quarter of the population say that their faith defines them as a person. The number of memberships in churches is also steadily decreasing. On the other hand, religion plays a major role in many debates: the Bavarian prime minister wants to hang a cross in every authority in his state, the two major Christian churches in Germany criticize this plan. At the same time, a not inconsiderable proportion of Germans express a – mostly diffuse – fear of the religion of Islam, right up to the populistically fomented fears of an “Islamization of the West”.

What influence does religion still have today on societies in Germany, in Europe? What civil society responsibility comes from the still large influence of the churches on social debates? What can and do religious communities for society as a whole? And how does the Protestant church position itself to questions such as increasing Islamophobia, misogyny or the social division of society? We discussed these and other questions with you and Bishop Dr. Heinrich Bedford-Strohm.

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